I'll be there - that's a festival we always try to visit. It's in my Top 5 list of feiseanna to attend each year. GREAT dancing, (although the competitions are too large), and plenty of other entertainment. Great Irish bands and lots of dancing for everyone - they usually have tents set up where non-competitors can kick up their heels.

TORRINGTON -- Hundreds of young girls and boys dressed in variations of traditional Celtic clothing packed into the St. Francis School on Sunday for an Irish dance competition. "Riverdance put the non-Irish into Irish dancing," event organizer Jacki McArdle said.

According to McArdle, the Fall Foliage Feis has been sponsored by the Torrington-based McArdle School of Irish Dance for "seven or eight years." Over 600 dancers from across the country were registered for Sunday's competition; McArdle's fist event attracted fewer than 100.

A high-energy evening of world champion Irish step-dancers, country cloggers and quick-footed tap dancers lies in store for Pratt Community Concert Association subscribers at its Nov. 21 performance. The curtain goes up on this celebration of the Irish American music experience at 7:30 p.m. in the Pratt Municipal Auditorium.

Advance materials explain that "Dancing on Common Ground" uses choreography and both traditional and original music to show the evolution of Irish dance and music from the time the Irish arrived in the United States during the 1848 potato famine to its present forms.

The fast-moving dancers show how Irish step dancing evolved to taping as it blended with urban African influences. In other settings such as the isolated Blue Ridge and Appalachian areas, step dancing became what is now called American Traditional or country clogging. Other veins of Irish music took traditional folk music and developed bluegrass, country and rock 'n roll music, say the group's sources.

Area kids will kick up their heels in Ireland By Rebecca Baker for The New Haven Register

HAMDEN — Kosmaczewski isn’t a name you’d expect to see on an Irish dance roster. But three members of the Kosmaczewski family in Hamden will kick up their heels in the Emerald Isle next week when their dance troupe competes in the All-Ireland Dance Championship.

Emma Kosmaczewski, 10, her brother Ian, 13, sister Sara, 15, and nine other students from the O’Keefe School of Irish Dance will fly to Killarney, Ireland, for the international dance-off that starts Saturday.

The group is the school’s largest ever to compete in Ireland. The school holds fund-raisers to help parents defray the costs of the international airfare.

"Their dancing is very strong," dance school owner John O’Keefe said. "This could be their time."

O’Keefe said Emma Kosmaczewski, his youngest competitor, is one of his strongest.

When Anne Reilly joins the Chieftains on stage Sunday at Fort Lauderdale's Broward Center, it will just be one more big step in this Irish dancer's young career of traditional reels, jigs and hornpipes. <a href=http://www.sun-sentinel.com/entertainment/stage/sfl-shirishfeb28,0,86625.story?coll=sfla%2Dentertainment%2Dstage target=_blank>more</a>

Stepping their way to Irish dance prowess by Lisa Rosato for The Owings Mills Times

Caragh MacDermott, left, and Flannery Carney, both 8, dance at Oak Crest Village. The girls are students of McHale School of Irish Dance in Randallstown. Before making it into the cast of ``Riverdance" or ``Lord of the Dance," or even performing at the annual Baltimore Irish Festival, those studying Irish step dancing must start small.

That is what teacher Linda McHale Poggi of Reisterstown, who runs McHale School of Irish Dance in Randallstown, stresses to students and their parents.

"Many parents think that after three lessons their kid will be dancing `Riverdance,'" Poggi says. "I have to tell them that's not the case."

A review of an evening of Irish song and dance in Africa, but don't blink or you'll miss the dance:

Singing And Dancing With the Irish From This Day (Lagos)

Having missed their annual tour of the country last year, the Irish traditional music and dance ambassadors returned to the country last week to entertain audiences in three Nigerian cities - Abuja, Port Harcourt and Lagos. Tunde Okoli reports that the experience was once again full of traditional Irish entertainment

As the performers waved the crowd 'bye, bye' at the end of their performance tagged, "Evening of Irish Music and Songs" at the Muson Centre, Onikan, Lagos penultimate year - 2001, many wished the evening would go on forever. More could hardly wait another 12 months before being treated to another evening of quality traditional Irish entertainment. But fate dealt a big one on their hopes. They would have to wait even longer. The Irish music ambassadors could not make the planned 2002 trip to the country because of President Obasanjo's trip to Ireland at the time. No one get to see the group perform last year.

Maureen O'Malley-Byrnes' days go by in jig time because the dancer is busy keeping in step with her heritage and her community. <a href=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nypost/20030707/lo_nypost/letseireitforthedancingqueen target=_blank>more on Yahoo</a>

KILLARNEY, Ireland (Reuters) - The way Owen Barrington sees it, if everyone in the world did Irish dance, there'd be no more wars. <a href=http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030629/lf_nm/ireland_irishdance_dc_1 target=_blank>more on Yahoo</a>

And Maureen has all the answers, including why step dancers keep the upper body rigid.

"Folklore says that it goes back to when the English outlawed dancing in Ireland," she said. "A lot of houses had half doors, where the top can open while the bottom stays closed. The story goes that by keeping the upper body straight, you couldn't be seen dancing if the bottom door was closed.

You'd just see people inexplicably bobbing up and down -- nothing suspicious there.

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